Worshipper killed, eight kidnapped in CAR terror

from OMAN MBIKO in Bangui, Central African Republic (CAR) BANGUI, (CAJ News) – AN armed man has shot dead a man and injured three after invading a church while eight civilians have been kidnapped in the latest crisis in the Central African Republic (CAR).

The killing of the man in the Catholic Church in central Ippy town, over 100 kilometres northeast of the market town Bambari, has displaced scores of civilians.

Ippy is one of localities under the control of factionalised Christian extremists and Muslim radicals fighting over dominance in the Central African country of 5 million people.

Bambari has been the scene of a series of armed clashes involving rebels, the Internal Security Forces, the Central African Armed Forces and the United Nations (UN) peacekeepers.

Meanwhile, militants of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) have broken into Obo town in the eastern Haut Mbomou Prefecture (Province) and kidnapped eight people.

Abducted at the weekend, the victims whose age and sex the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilisation Mission in the CAR (MINUSCA) was yet to ascertain, remain in the hands of their captors.

LRA is a rebel group and Christian cult also operating in adjacent countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan and Uganda.

CAR, the landlocked minerals-rich country, is gripped by anarchy after then-president, François Bozizé, fled rampaging Muslim groups that seized power in 2013.

Last week, rebels killed a Burundian peacekeeper after attacking a UN peacekeeping convoy in Bambari.

It brought to five the number of peacekeepers killed this year.

Militants have killed over 70 peacekeepers since the UN mission’s deployment in 2014.– CAJ News